The Salt

9:13 am

Fri July 20, 2012

Long Before Social Networking, Community Cookbooks Ruled The Stove

The Woman Suffrage Cook Book: Containing thoroughly tested and reliable recipes for cooking, directions for care of the sick, and practical suggestions. Originally sold at an 1886 fair in Boston, this cookbook was the first to raise funds for and disseminate information about women's suffrage.

Buckeye Cookery, And Practical Housekeeping: Compiled From Original Recipes. Though it began as a charity cookbook published by the First Congregational Church in Marysville, Ohio in 1876, after more than 80,000 copies 30 printings in multiple languages it became an American classic.

The Settlement Cook Book: Containing Many Recipes Used In Settlement Cooking Classes, The Milwaukee Public School Cooking Centers and Gathered From Various Other Reliable Sources. This 1901 cookbook began as a fundraiser for the Jewish Settlement House in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Through multiple printings over 75 years, this cookbook benefited many Milwaukee charities.

Washington Women's Cook Book. This 1908 cookbook, compiled by The Washington Equal Suffrage Association, shows the migration of the women's movement to the western United States. Along with recipes, it also provided readers pro-suffrage quotations and practical tips for cooking while camping.

The Woman Suffrage Cook Book: Containing thoroughly tested and reliable recipes for cooking, directions for care of the sick, and practical suggestions. Originally sold at an 1886 fair in Boston, this cookbook was the first to raise funds for and disseminate information about women's suffrage.

The Blue Grass Cook Book. Published in 1904, most likely for charitable purposes, this cookbook celebrated the quintessential cuisine of communities in Kentucky. The cookbook was a compilation of recipes from many women in Kentucky.

Michigan State University Libraries

Millions of users share recipes, DIY projects, and household tips on the social networking site Pinterest and myriad blogs and other sites.

But over a century before pinboards were virtual and bookmarking had nothing to do with actual books, people shared their domestic prowess through community cookbooks.

And these cookbooks (some historic covers are featured above in our slide show) were so much more than just a catalog of recipes — they were fundraisers, political pamphlets, and historical accounts of the communities they served.

Most began as a way to raise funds for a common goal. In America, the first of these charity cookbooks was A Poetical Cookbook by Maria J. Moss, which was published and sold in 1864 to subsidize medical costs for Union soldiers injured in the Civil War. "She compiled the recipes on her own, then she thought, 'Let's see if we can use it to make some money to help the wounded soldiers,'" Andrew Smith, professor of Food Studies at The New School in New York City, tells The Salt.

Many community organizations learned from Moss's success, and began creating fundraising cookbooks of their own. In fact, the concept became so popular that more than 3,000 charity cookbooks were published between 1864 and 1922, according to Feeding America, an historic cookbook project of Michigan State University.

At first, most of these cookbooks were created by religious groups. "If the church needed to have a steeple constructed or it needed a new building, they would ask the women of the congregation," says Smith.

These cookbooks were compiled by religious congregations across the country from the First Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Ohio to the Council of Jewish Women in Portland, Oregon. Cookbooks are still compiled by churches today, though modern adaptations include web recipe collection forms and special categories for vegan and gluten-free meals.

However, church ladies weren't the only ones to communicate through cookbooks. In 1886, a group of politically progressive women in Massachusetts compiled The Woman Suffrage Cookbook, to be sold at the Boston Festival and Bazaar. It was created to raise funds for their municipal suffrage campaign, but also as a means to spread the group's agenda.

"It was an innocuous way to spread their message. It was just a cookbook at a festival ... it made it OK for people who wouldn't have engaged with their cause otherwise," says Emily Contois, public health nutritionist and food blogger.

And more than just the recipe names were progressive, says Contois. Some of the women submitted recipes recorded in the modern approach — ingredients listed on top and instructions listed below — 10 years before recipe standardization pioneer Fannie Farmer published the first version of her influential cookbook.

Contois and Smith both say that these old cookbooks have inspired a new genre of culinary literature: Personal stories intertwined with recipes. This template is now seen everywhere from June Hersh's Recipes Remembered, which shares the stories of Jewish Holocaust survivors and their pre-war recipes to The Homesick Texan Cookbook, which records the memories and recipes of popular blogger Lisa Fain, who transplanted to New York City from the Lone Star State.

With community cookbooks, Smith says, "you get an insight into history that isn't there from any other source, it's not in newspapers, it just hasn't survived." And that historical value, might be more important to modern cookbook buyers than any recipe inside. So what began as practical household how-to guides, are now more likely to be a coffee table conversation starter than a reference in the kitchen.